Law and order

Along with defence, there’s one other area where rolling back the state doesn’t come naturally to Conservatives: criminal justice. The massive cuts looming on the horizon for the criminal justice system would have been politically toxic for any party to deliver, but for the traditional party of law and order there will be a special discomfort.
 
Ken Clarke’s speech this morning was much less exciting for the penal reform/abolitionist lobby than the morning papers indicated. Echoing Nick Herbert’s speech to Policy Exchange last week, the Justice Secretary rightly said that that the test of a successful criminal justice system was not simply the number of people you lock up – but in the Q&A session, he revealed that he was not, in fact, seeking to reduce the prison population (indeed a contract for the building of a new prison is due to be signed tomorrow).
 
Of course, the Prison Service will have to bear its share of the burden of fiscal consolidation.